Difference between revisions of "The Open Lobby"

Background and general goals

In America's formative days, major news stories might take days to reach the general public, and active, ongoing communication among large and dispersed groups was impossible. Representative democracy was a system that allowed the people to have a voice, while bowing to the technological possibilities of the time.

But today, the infrastructure of our world-famous democracy is outdated and crumbling, and the devastating consequences of this sad state of affairs are all around us.

Crafting laws, and the negotiating process that leads to it, has become an enormously complex process, and lacks in transparency. To get a basic understanding of a law (either an existing one, or a proposed draft) virtually requires a law degree and copious free time. The idea that we all have input into the laws that govern us is true in only the most technical sense.

Today, modern communication technologies have altered the landscape significantly: the telegraph, telephone, radio, television, email, and now wikis, blogs, and extensive online databases.

But the more technology we have at our disposal, it seems, the more complex and uninviting our institutions of government become. Perhaps the most appalling example in recent history was when an unelected staff worker of U.S. Senator Arlen Specter inserted language into the USA PATRIOT Act reauthorization without, apparently, the knowledge of his boss or anybody else in that body.

To anyone familiar with word processors and the "track changes" feature, such a gaffe is almost inconceivable. And outside of government, collaboration and collective decision-making are thriving as never before.

Of course, government tries to adapt to modern technology, but the results range from the embarrassing to the criminal: electronic voting machines that "count" votes according to the whims of their programmers, web sites full of unsearchable PDFs, the need to visit four separate web sites to find information that any self-respecting web developer would link together.

Directly changing government to adapt to modern technology would be an enormous project. Thankfully, it is also an unnecessary one. As flawed as it is, our government is designed to respond, on some level, to the will of the people. If we can design and use a system that allows us to develop broad and strong consensus around policy changes, and can communicate our wishes effectively to existing government bodies, they will respond.

It's what advocacy organizations have been doing from the beginning; but we can do it better. Building a solid foundation, and holding transparency and accessibility as core values, we can begin to assess our collective will. We can educate ourselves and our neighbors about important issues, and make good and relevant decisions about how they should be addressed.

We have voices, typing fingers, hearts, and minds. We can turn our democracy around.

Wiki successes

Systems that are based on new technology – specifically, wiki-based systems – have proven successful beyond expectation.

Wikipedia, an encyclopedia built entirely by volunteers, has yielded some excellent articles. Articles on topics that are deeply controversial, where one might reasonably expect passionate disagreement to prevent meaningful consensus, are often quite good. This results from people talking through the controversial issues, and reaching a consensus on a neutral description that informs the reader, while remaining compatible with various points of view.

But Wikipedia is one example of many. New Zealand set up a wiki-based web site to capture the public's views on what a new Policing Act might look like; by all reports (see "New Zealand Launches Wiki To Help Citizens Draft New Law" and "Police wiki lets you write the law", it yielded innovative ideas, and was a resounding success.

Please see Wiki success stories for specific examples of how various groups have used wiki-based sites to refine information and/or to be more effective and productive.

Project

The project envisioned will involve two distinct components

• developing objective, factual, and analytical information about how government and society currently operates. (Platform: wiki, database web site, in-person meetings)
• developing policy proposals

It may be best to focus on the first component, first; but both components will be ongoing. (Platform: wiki, Consensus Polling, in-person meetings)

Develop information resources

If a group is going to develop policy recommendations, it is essential that it have information the issues that will be affected. This information must be accurate, and must be accessible to all participants; in many cases, this means accurate and jargon-free summaries of large quantities of information. Such summaries may be sought out from existing sources, but more often, it will be necessary for this project to research and develop its own resources – for accuracy, impartiality, and in some cases, to respect copyright.

This component of the project will probably rely on a wiki-based web site, but other platforms for more structured information (like online databases dabbledb.com or wagn.org) may be more appropriate for some content. See an example on DabbleDB, a database of (some) Oregon ballot measures. It's also possible that producing pamphlets or other printed media will be desirable.

Existing resources:

• Wikipedia has a lots of good info that's already had broad input. (See the Oregon portal for a good starting point.)
• Oregon.gov has lots of info, including the State Archives, innumerable reports from various commissions, briefs prepared for legislators. this one on taxation looks promising.
• News outlets like the Oregonian, Statesman Journal, etc. are searchable at the Multnomah County Library web site]. Portland Mercury, Tribune and other outlets have full archives online.
• Good info often appears on blogs, but is too rarely properly sourced.
• Existing policy analysis and advocacy organizations like Oregon Center for Public Policy, Democracy Reform Oregon have resources online.

Develop policy proposals

Use an online, collaborative process to develop policy recommendations. The idea would be to generate legislation from a truly inclusive process, and thereby influence the relevant legislative body(s) (Portland City Council, Oregon Legislative Assembly, etc.)

This process would rely on wiki software and, most likely, Consensus Polling or some variant thereof. In-person meetings would be essential, to involve those not hip to online collaboration, and to reach new participants. (Talk to John and Leah Frohnmayer.)

Possible issues to start with

• Get government-produced materials released into the public domain, or under a free license
• (from Jen Yocum) Make and/or implement a street naming policy for Portland!
• (building on expertise of existing core group) Advise government on how to incorporate technology into its web sites, etc. (See video below)
• teacher tenure (Chris Beck)

Side benefits

• Introducing people to wiki technology; see [1] and [2]

Potential pitfalls

Decisions, decisions

• What scale to begin on? (Portland? a school district? Multnomah County? statewide?)

Finances and feasibility

Measures of success

• Community has demonstrable activity, enough to solicit sponsorship/advertising
• Having an elected official or significant candidate for office publicly adopt one of our policy proposals.
• Someone from within the community is inspired to run for office or sponsor a ballot measure based on policy proposal.
• Significant newspaper editorial or endorsement from public figure of policy proposal. (Focus is on content of proposal, not process.)
• Ideal: policy adopted, general public understands how it originated.
• Significant growth of community

Things to avoid

• Putting too much focus on getting the government to change, and incorporate technology. I believe the power of this idea is along the lines of "show, don't tell." The goal is to generate policy recommendations backed by a consensus so strong, that existing government entities will be compelled to adopt them.
• Getting bogged down in technical specifics. The bulk of the work should be in community-building, and on the specific tasks at hand. There will be many technical options, but if we can get the right group dynamic, it won't matter much whether we're on this or that platform.

Related thinkings

• Portal:Consensus Polling
• Pedagogy, Organizing and Wiki (by Mark Dilley)